Darkstone

""The Dark Stone Will Shine""

Let me start by saying this: Darkstone, regardless of what anyone else says, IS a complete clone of the Diablo formula. That's okay though, because it's a good game to be modeled after, and it is actually executed quite well.

GAMEPLAY: 7/10
The gameplay consists predominantly of hack-n-slash action with some classic Dungeons & Dragons-esque magic (i.e. Magic Missile). The good thing about the gameplay is this: There are four character classes to choose from (each giving you the choice of male or female), and your fighting style will have to change depending on which class you chose. For instance, choosing the Warrior will enable you to flat-out crush some skulls with brute force, while playing as the Wizard will allow you to learn new and useful magic with which to combat your enemies. That, however, is no big feat, as most games with character classes are the same way. In some unexplainable way, though, Darkstone just makes it fun to fight goblins, skeletons, lizardmen, etc. and it doesn't ever get dull.

GRAPHICS: 5/10
The graphics in Darkstone are fine, in that they are good enough for you to know where you are, who you are, what you're fighting, and all that. That's all though. I didn't pay too much attention to the graphics, and if you're a big role-playing junkie, neither will you. The reason the score is a 5 is because they're not good, but not too bad, and I would have felt unjustified by saying they were either of the two.

SOUND/MUSIC: 3/10
This is perhaps the weakest part of the game, as a whole. The sound effects are the cliche' and over-used sounds that you will find in every hack-n-slash RPG ever made, but somehow cheesier. The music is nothing special at all, and often doesn't quite fit the situation, which really takes you out of the game, so to speak. There is one part in the starting town where you can donate one piece of gold to a musical duo and they perform a song for you about the Dark Stone. The song itself isn't terrible, but it really doesn't belong in this game, and since it is about the Dark Stone, it doesn't belong anywhere else either, which makes me wonder: why does this song exist? It's a pointless distraction and should not have been included, much the sound effects and music in this game. My advice to you: Turn on the Lord of the Rings movie soundtrack and turn your TV volume down. It is much better, believe me.

CONTROL: 9/10
The controls are not a problem at all, and will feel very familiar to fans of Diablo, Baldur's Gate, or any other dungeon-crawler RPG. The reason the score is a 9 and not a 10 is due to the fact that I personally do not like any of the camera angles that you can choose from by pressing the 'triangle' button.

REPLAYABILITY: 8/10
Darkstone is very replayable, due to the four different character classes (with four males and four females, making eight characters in all), and with each class, the experience is different each time through. I had the most fun with the magical class, but there's a class here for whatever your preference.

OVERALL: 7/10
I'm going to recommend Darkstone to anyone looking for a role-playing game for a good price and one that will keep them entertained for a while. Buy it, because it's ridiculously cheap now and renting it would cost about the same price.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/14/05